It would appear that under circumstances not hitherto understood, certain parts of animal bodies become poisonous; and the _virus_ would not seem to be connected with any stage of putrefaction, nor with any previous disease in the animal. As far as our limited experience upon this subject will allow us to generalize, the brain and the viscera would appear to be particularly susceptible of such a change. Some curious and highly interesting observations have lately been published by _Dr. Kerner_, of Wurtemberg, respecting the probable existence of a species of animal poison not hitherto known. He informs us that the smoked sausages, which constitute so favourite a repast to the inhabitants of Wurtemberg, often cause fatal poisoning. The effects of the poison occasionally manifest themselves in the spring, generally in the month of April, in a degree more or less alarming. He states that out of _seventy-six_ persons, who became sick from having eaten such sausages, _thirty-seven_ died in a short time, and that several others remained ill for years. Upon these occasions it has been observed, that the most virulent sausages were made of liver. _M. Cadet_, of Paris, analysed all the meats, examined all the vessels in which they had been prepared; and inspected the matters vomited, or found in the stomach after death, without being able to trace the vestige of any known poison; nor was there the slightest evidence in these cases of malevolence or negligence. Similar accidents have occurred at different periods in Paris; upon which occasions, the police officers visited the pig dealers, and were perfectly assured that the animals had never been fed with unwholesome food; the use of poison for rats, with which these places abound, was interdicted, and every precaution taken. What then, asks _M. Cadet_, is this poison found in sausage meats—is it Prussic acid—is it a new matter? It is evidently not the effect of putrefaction, since it exists in meats perfectly well preserved. To the above queries of _M. Cadet_, the author of the present work begs to add one more—may not the skin enclosing the sausage meat be the part in which the poison resides? It is well known that the bodies of animals who die of various diseases, are capable of communicating fatal diseases to the human species; and experience has shewn that such animal poison is particularly energetic in those parts that are commonly called the _offals_, in which term are included the intestines; in the history of _fish-poison_, which will hereafter offer itself to our notice, we shall find numerous instances of dogs, cats, hogs, and birds, dying from eating these parts, while persons, who have partaken of the fish to which these _offals_ belonged, remained uninjured. But to account for the deleterious change of which these parts appear to be occasionally susceptible, it does not appear necessary to suppose that the animal died in a state of disease. _Captain Scoresby_, in his “Account of the